National Award for New Britain as 'Bike-Friendly'

NEW BRITAIN — The city's initiative to create bike lanes has drawn praise from the League of American Bicyclists, which included New Britain and West Hartford on its newest list of bike-friendly communities in the U.S.

The distinction is a victory for Bike New Britain, a group of cycling advocates in the city that drew more than 100 participants for its "Hardware City Bike Tour" last month.

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Mayor Erin Stewart said the city plans further work to make its streets inviting to bicyclists.

"This bring us to a higher level of living," Stewart said. "It means a lot to us to be nationally recognized for trying to improve the health of our community."

The League of American Bicyclists has awarded varying degrees of bike-friendly distinction to 325 communities in 50 states. Farmington, New Haven, Simsbury and South Windsor were already on the list.

The awards are based on street design, enforcement of ordinances to protect cyclists, local efforts to educate drivers and cyclists, statistics on cyclists' safety and similar factors.

Categories begin at bronze and rise to silver, gold, platinum and diamond. Only four communities in the country have the platinum designation. Cambridge, Mass., is the closest gold-rated community. Simsbury is the only Connecticut town designated as silver.

Overall, the organization ranks Connecticut as 20th among the 50 states for having policies, infrastructure and funding that support bicycling. Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Delaware and Oregon were given the best ratings, while Kansas, Kentucky, South Carolina, Montana and Alabama ranked at the bottom.

A city study in 2008 concluded that New Britain's street system was good for cars but not well designed for walkers and cyclists. The city has added bike lanes downtown and elsewhere since then. A 2013 streetscape report said making the city, especially downtown, more receptive to pedestrians and bikers would help economic development, particularly with service on CTfastrak scheduled to start in 2015.

The busway to Hartford includes a roughly 5-mile walking and biking path as far as Newington, and CTfastrak has been emphasizing that its stations will have bike racks and its buses will accommodate bikes. The city is working to attract developers to build market-rate housing near the busway's main station downtown. Stewart and others say that effort will be more productive if builders can market New Britain as welcoming to pedestrians and cyclists, since some prospective tenants wouldn't need the expense and obligations of owning cars.

"Visionary community leaders are recognizing the real time and long-term impact that a culture of bicycling can create," Andy Clarke, president of the League of American Bicyclists, said in statement announcing the new designations.

"Through our Bike New Britain initiative, we've made becoming a bicycle friendly community a high priority in New Britain," Stewart said. "We're just getting started though, and more and more great things are to come."